


a story better left forgotten

by n7punk



Series: Outside of the War - She-ra canon stories [9]
Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:14:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26442532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/n7punk/pseuds/n7punk
Summary: Catra knows. She knows from the moment she wakes up that something is wrong. No, not wrong – different. Good different. Everything is exactly as she has always wanted – and she needs to keep it that way.(Or, inside the portal, from Catra’s perspective)
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Series: Outside of the War - She-ra canon stories [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1793227
Comments: 14
Kudos: 196





	a story better left forgotten

**Author's Note:**

> I got an anon and now we’re here. I got a LOT of anons actually, requesting this over like two or three weeks and also specifically requesting I DON’T do this, which just encouraged me more.

Adora does not sleep in.

And Catra does not wake up feeling like this. It is a weird day.

She wakes up at the foot of Adora’s bed, like always. At the foot of Adora’s big ass force captain bed. It feels _right_ , having as much room to stretch out across the width of the bed as she would if she were sleeping across the length up by Adora’s side.

Up by Adora’s side. That is a thought. She could do that. They have always slept like this, with careful distance between them, but there is no one to see here in Adora’s private quarters. She knows there is a reason, but in the morning haze she can’t remember it. Something about Shadow Weaver getting mad about it? Catra does not know why she would, Shadow Weaver loves them both, but she does hate anything that deviates outside of Horde guidelines. They are already _doing_ that, though, with how Catra sprawls across the foot of Adora’s bed despite her _official_ assignment still being the bunkroom.

Catra sits up, stretching slowly. The Force Captain quarters are familiar, even if the decorations feel a bit off. A bit off from _what_ , she does not know, but there is an odd dissonance in the room. Or maybe that is just Adora’s snoring.

This is where she is meant to be. Everything feels _right,_ despite the weirdness _,_ as Catra crawls up the bed to loom over Adora, fully prepared to tickle her awake if need be. Moments like this are all Catra wanted, growing up.

 _I want it to stay like this forever_ , she thinks to herself. The next thought that comes is twisted, darker and angrier. _I have to keep things like this_.

Why would they change? Adora is Force Captain now, but she brought Catra _with_ her. Nothing can pull them apart. Not now Adora has real power, not now they have _proven_ themselves. Not now that they are together on the battlefield and going to take Etheria by storm – likely a storm of fire and blood, but it will be glorious anyway.

Catra hesitates in waking Adora. She feels like she hasn’t seen Adora this peaceful and relaxed in a long time.

 _She doesn’t love you_.

The thought comes from nowhere and nearly makes her drop down against Adora. She knows it with such _certainty_ , despite all the signs to the contrary, all the gentle touches and the whispered discussion of, “You’ll still sleep with me, right? After I’m captain and I’m in a different bed. I don’t want a different bed if it means sleeping alone.”

But Adora does not love her, and she _knows_ it.

Cautiously, she calls Adora’s name to wake her up.

\--

Everything is perfect. Everything is right. This is just where they are meant to be.

Something still feels off. Catra jokes and laughs with Adora, elbowing her in the hall and taking her towards her surprise in the locker room, but all she can think is _don’t leave me_. All she can think is _this is perfect_ and _I have to protect us_.

Adora is being weird. Catra wonders if she feels it too. She keeps pausing, doing that weird little shutdown she does when something that breaks her perceived reality occurs. Usually she does it in the face of _Lonnie’s favourite colour is pink_ and not _here’s what you did yesterday_ , but every time she perks back up and remembers from the prompt Catra gives her. It still worries Catra.

She jokes about brain damage, but with every pause she can’t help but feel that Adora knows this is wrong too, and she is not soothed by the _rightness_ of it like Catra is. If she isn’t, Catra will just have to cling to it for the both of them. This is _right_ and she will do anything to keep things this way.

In the locker room, they laugh and wrestle and it is so perfect Catra does not question a thing. Shadow Weaver interrupts them, reaches for her, and for a reason she can’t explain, she feels a momentary flash of panic. She tenses, but Shadow Weaver’s touch is gentle and loving.

Everything is perfect – and then Shadow Weaver leads Adora away.

\--

“ _Catra, don’t!”_

\--

There is a gap, and then there is Adora, back again. With Catra. Where she _should_ be.

Adora is a mess, handing her a blank note and insisting it _said_ something. She is panting, confused and desperate. She knows this is wrong, but unlike Catra she is not _happy_. She should be happy. They have everything they have ever wanted, they have each other, why is that not _enough_ for her?

The flash hits Catra, anger and betrayal and _belittled_ , Adora dangling from a cliff, and Catra _doesn’t help her_. Catra cuts her down.

In the present, Adora is still panicking, words running together, and Catra needs her to _stop_. Needs that vision to be gone, the fear to be gone, for the two of them to just be _okay_ and be _happy_ like they were that morning. She doesn’t decide to slap Adora, but she feels an unknown wave of anger at her _ruining_ this and she just needs her to stop. She is triggering something in Catra, something dark and hurt and twisted. She just wants them to be calm and happy again like they were this morning.

She tries to push it all down, to push it _away_. She takes Adora to their platform, where they have always been safe. Where it will feel _right_ and Adora will stop panicking, and questioning, and _fighting her-_

It works. Adora is weird when they first get there, but she calms down. She listens to Catra, which may be a first. But she _questions_ her to, she questions everything they want.

“What if we don’t stay together? What if it all goes wrong?” she asks, and Catra’s heart drops out of her chest.

It does all go wrong. It _did_ all go wrong. But somehow they found their way back here where it is _right_.

“Why can’t you see that?” Adora pleads, frustrated and confused as she looks at _nothing_.

Catra reaches for her, desperate. “Adora, stay with me, okay?” she asks. She has asked this before, she knows.

Adora didn’t listen to her then, and she doesn’t listen now.

Lonnie calls them down, tells them they are going to Salineas, and Adora _breaks_. She lists everything wrong, everything Catra can see but _doesn’t care_. Catra grabs her, tries to snap her out of it, tries to bring her _home_.

Adora runs. Runs for _Scorpia_.

It is not the first time Catra has seen her retreating back.

\--

Adora comes back, grabbing her and hauling her into a closet. She lists off names, names that mean nothing to Catra, she says _they’re all gone_ and Catra fights to remember, fights to keep Adora by her side. Adora wants them to leave, but Catra _doesn't want to_. She just wants this, the two of them, together again.

Because once, they were apart, and it nearly killed her.

“Everything’s fine, okay?” she can hear the edge of doubt in her own voice. Adora is panicking, and Catra thinks in another life she would be worried by Adora panicking. She would ask her what is wrong and listen to her when she tells her. But in this life, Catra knows what is wrong, so she deflects and buries it. They could be _happy_ if Adora would just _let them_.

“I know it’s not perfect and _so do you_ ,” Adora tells her, voice breaking.

The flashes hit her. The _memories_. The way things used to be – the way things _are_. Catra pushes them down, turns back around.

“You’ve gone crazy. I’m not going anywhere,” she tells Adora, despite how she knows the truth. _Deny, deny, deny_. She just wants Adora, she just wants them _together_. Why doesn’t Adora want that too?

Adora picks up the stun baton, and Catra barely gets a moment to react before things go black.

\--

She wakes up in the skiff. She knows, she _knows_ , but she won’t let herself acknowledge it. Not until the fight, not until Adora begs her to _fix things_ , not until the flashes overwhelm her, _break_ her.

A part of Catra knew from the very first second, she just did not _care_. It was perfect, it was right, it was better than any outcome she had imagined. Better than more Horde, better than the end of the world. She built the perfect world for Adora, gave her everything she had ever wanted – everything they had ever wanted – but Adora still didn’t want _her_.

There is nothing left. _Nothing_ that matters. Adora doesn’t fucking love her, and there is no place in time or space that she can construct where Adora _will_. Adora always leaves, Adora always _fixes_ , Adora always wins, and Catra is left alone in the dirt, a useless castoff who never accomplished anything. Who _no one_ ever wanted, ever loved.

Catra fights her. She tries to _hurt_ her. The way Adora hurt her, Adora destroyed her. She will never have her love, but she can’t let her win now.

The world ends around them, and Catra falls. Despite everything, Adora reaches for her, looks at her with pleading eyes, begging her to do the right thing and be a good person. That is never something Catra could be.

Catra looks her in the eye, and she lets go. It is the last way she has left to hurt her.

\--

She lands. She doesn’t expect to, doesn’t want to, but she lands on a chunk of earth and the corruption burns into her skin as she desperately climbs back up the side of the chasm. Adora is gone now, she thinks _Catra_ is gone now. Catra hurt her, Catra _succeeded_.

But she can do more. Catra was never going to go out any way but clawing and scratching. Adora still _doesn’t understand_. She still does not know how she hurt Catra, how she broke Catra, how she _drove_ her to this. Adora does not understand that this is _all her fault_.

But she will.

\--

Adora does not listen. She never _does_.

“Now live with it!”

They would not be here if Catra ever _could_.

\--

There is nothing between Adora’s face, hardened with anger as the punch comes flying at Catra, and when she wakes on the floor of Hordak’s sanctum, thoughts clear again now she is free of the corruption but emotions _storming_.

She runs. Just like she always has. When she turns back to meet She-ra’s eyes, they are as angry as Adora’s had been. Her face is a mask of anger, determination, retribution. Catra feels the shattered pieces of her heart disintegrate, fear gripping every limb. The look promises pain. The look promises revenge.

The look promises that whatever ceasefire they had between them, where they never tried to really _kill_ the other – it is over now, for Adora. It promises that whatever lingering feelings Adora held for her are gone now.

That should be expected. Catra did try to destroy the entire world first - that includes Adora, even if the point had been that it included _herself_. She still feels her throat clench as she vanishes back into the shadows, into the darkness where she belongs.

Part of her heart says _if you loved me back, this never would have happened_. The rest of her heart betrays her. _No one could ever love you, you did this to yourself_.

And yet Catra still loves _her_.

One of them will die by the other’s hand before this war is truly done. Catra, despite all her self-preservation and selfish desires, hopes it is _her_. She has been living in a world without Adora for long enough. She pulled that switch because she wanted it all to _stop_.

But Catra can’t stop. Catra has to go out clawing and scratching. Catra has to _win_ , to be worth _something_ , to have some proof that even a moment of her suffering had a point if it accomplished something.

She will destroy herself, or the only one she loves will. She should have known it on the day Adora walked away, but she knows it now.

 _She doesn’t love you_. It never mattered if she did. Catra would still burn herself and the world down for her. She still _will_. It is all she has left. Everyone is gone, everyone has betrayed her. All she can do now is destroy.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m really sorry, but I thought it and now you have to read it too.


End file.
